1 00:00:12,120 --> 00:00:19,170 Good afternoon and welcome to this book at lunchtime event on Ravana, Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe. 2 00:00:19,170 --> 00:00:25,770 Written by Professor Judith Herron. My name is Wes Williams and I'm the director here at Torch Book. 3 00:00:25,770 --> 00:00:27,540 At lunchtime, as regulars will know, 4 00:00:27,540 --> 00:00:35,820 is Torture's flagship interdisciplinary event series taking the form of bite sized book discussions with a range of commentators? 5 00:00:35,820 --> 00:00:41,820 Please do take a look at our website, a newsletter for the full programme for the rest of this term. 6 00:00:41,820 --> 00:00:48,570 The book will be exploring today in a discussion chaired by Peter Frank Open, who is about to join us on screen, 7 00:00:48,570 --> 00:00:54,900 explains and explores how the Adriatic city of Ravenna became both a meeting place for Greek, 8 00:00:54,900 --> 00:01:01,830 Latin, Christian and barbarian cultures and something of a pivot point between East and West. 9 00:01:01,830 --> 00:01:05,940 In arguing for the new understanding of the significance of Ravana, 10 00:01:05,940 --> 00:01:13,050 Judith's book also argues that the fifth to a century should not be perceived as a time of decline from antiquity, 11 00:01:13,050 --> 00:01:21,140 but rather, and in large part thanks to the rich culture of Byzantium as one of great creativity. 12 00:01:21,140 --> 00:01:27,200 I'm delighted to welcome Judith Herion here today to speak about her book, along with Averil Cameron Conrad later. 13 00:01:27,200 --> 00:01:32,820 And Peter Frank Compan, who, as I mentioned a minute ago, will be chairing the discussion. 14 00:01:32,820 --> 00:01:39,990 In a second or two, I'll disappear from your screens and hand over to Peter, who will introduce the book more fully, and the rest of the panel. 15 00:01:39,990 --> 00:01:48,180 This will be followed by a brief reading and discussion by Judith. And then our commentators will present their thoughts on the book coming at 16 00:01:48,180 --> 00:01:53,170 it from their particular disciplines and starting the discussion going well, 17 00:01:53,170 --> 00:01:56,350 then give Judith a chance to respond. All within this due to fill, of course, 18 00:01:56,350 --> 00:02:00,510 have the chance to respond to some of the points raised before entering in the last stages 19 00:02:00,510 --> 00:02:06,090 of today's hour into what we hope will be a discussion that includes questions from you, 20 00:02:06,090 --> 00:02:12,330 the audience. So please do ensure that you add your questions to the Q&A as we go along. 21 00:02:12,330 --> 00:02:18,180 All that's left for me to do then is to thank you all for coming and to introduce our chair. 22 00:02:18,180 --> 00:02:25,590 Peter Frank Upon is professor of Global History at Oxford University, where he's also a senior research fellow at Wooster College, 23 00:02:25,590 --> 00:02:31,590 and Stavros Niarchos, Foundation director of the Oxford Centre for Business and Research. 24 00:02:31,590 --> 00:02:38,790 He works on the history of the Mediterranean, Russia, the Middle East, Persia, Iran, Central Asia and beyond, 25 00:02:38,790 --> 00:02:44,450 with a key aspect of his work being the history of relations between Christianity and Islam. 26 00:02:44,450 --> 00:02:52,680 His books, The Silk Road 2015 and the New Silk Road 2018 received huge acclaim. 27 00:02:52,680 --> 00:03:01,370 He writes regularly for the international press, advises governments on geopolitics and is chair of this year's Kandal History PRISE. 28 00:03:01,370 --> 00:03:08,200 Over to you then, Peter, I'll join you later when we come to the questions. Thank you. 29 00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:11,860 Thank you very much, Wes, and thank all of you for joining us. 30 00:03:11,860 --> 00:03:16,630 I'm sure, like I am your old desperate to hear the results of the presidential election, 31 00:03:16,630 --> 00:03:25,420 but we won't know until the 15th of November who has won in Moldova where there's the runoff because of results being inconclusive so far. 32 00:03:25,420 --> 00:03:30,040 So thank you all for joining us today. Torture is such an important parts of what we do in Oxford. 33 00:03:30,040 --> 00:03:36,190 The Centre for Research into the Humanities as well said is the flagship for interdisciplinary work. 34 00:03:36,190 --> 00:03:41,400 And so it's a great pleasure today to welcome Judith Herron, who is an old friend of latency, 35 00:03:41,400 --> 00:03:46,030 the Byzantine studies out of the Oxford CENTAVO Byzantine research here in Oxford. 36 00:03:46,030 --> 00:03:51,340 So it's a real thrill to get to come and talk about her important work on Ravella. 37 00:03:51,340 --> 00:03:55,300 Judith Herron doesn't need any introduction, but she won the Heineken PRISE History, 38 00:03:55,300 --> 00:04:04,060 which is the Dutch Nobel prise in 2016 for her pioneering work on the early mediaeval Mediterranean worlds and especially the role of Byzantium. 39 00:04:04,060 --> 00:04:07,030 Also the influence of Islam and the significance of women. 40 00:04:07,030 --> 00:04:12,650 She's the author of Byzantine Byzantium The Surprising Life of Mediaeval Empire Information Christendom, 41 00:04:12,650 --> 00:04:15,700 Mediaeval Miscellany and Women in Purple Propounds. 42 00:04:15,700 --> 00:04:22,840 Having worked in Birmingham, Paris, Munich assembled Princeton before becoming a progressive late antique Byzantine studies at King's College, 43 00:04:22,840 --> 00:04:29,590 London, where she's now the Constantine Domantas visiting senior research fellow in the Department of Classics. 44 00:04:29,590 --> 00:04:38,230 It's a joy to be joined by Prince Harry, but also by two friends and colleagues here in Oxford, England, both heavyweights who need no introduction. 45 00:04:38,230 --> 00:04:43,850 Professor David Cameron was Warden of People College from much 94 to 2010 and before 46 00:04:43,850 --> 00:04:48,280 was Professor of Lit was professor of late Antico Byzantine history at King's London, 47 00:04:48,280 --> 00:04:52,030 where she was also the first director of the Centre for Hellenic Studies. 48 00:04:52,030 --> 00:04:56,430 Professor Cameron was also, we found he chairman of the Oxford textbook Byzantine Research, 49 00:04:56,430 --> 00:05:01,870 which some of you will know has had a fantastic tenure years since we were founded in 2010. 50 00:05:01,870 --> 00:05:08,200 Professor Cameron is currently the professor, the president of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies. 51 00:05:08,200 --> 00:05:14,350 Cronut Lines is a colleague of mine. It was the college where he's associate professor history as tutor of history at Worcester. 52 00:05:14,350 --> 00:05:22,690 He specialises in the religious and social history of blacks in Western late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, which is from about 300 to 700. 53 00:05:22,690 --> 00:05:30,430 His current research project centres on celibacy and the professionalisation of the priesthood in the so-called vulnerable church of the 10th century. 54 00:05:30,430 --> 00:05:39,700 He is the author of Authority and Scepticism From Augustine to Gregory, the Great and co-editor of England and the Continent in the 10th Century. 55 00:05:39,700 --> 00:05:47,110 So first we'll ask Professor Aaron to talk about about Rabiner capital, the crucible of Europe. 56 00:05:47,110 --> 00:05:52,120 And then I'd like to bring in Professor Cameroons and Response and Professor Litsa. 57 00:05:52,120 --> 00:05:59,650 After that, we'll then have a discussion amongst the four of us. But if you have questions, please put them in the Q&A box. 58 00:05:59,650 --> 00:06:03,820 They're trying to get through to them as quickly as we can before finishing, 59 00:06:03,820 --> 00:06:09,220 but we control applauds as Professor Harold makes our way to keyboards and her camera. 60 00:06:09,220 --> 00:06:13,920 It's a great pleasure to welcome you to talk about a reminder to us today. 61 00:06:13,920 --> 00:06:17,460 Thank you very much, Peter. It's a great joy to be here. 62 00:06:17,460 --> 00:06:29,370 And as I suggested, I shall read from the concluding pages of the book, which I hope will be give us a taste of what's to come. 63 00:06:29,370 --> 00:06:39,780 I pick up the point at the point where. As is generally agreed, cities in the mediaeval West declined in the post Roman period. 64 00:06:39,780 --> 00:06:45,690 The exception was Ravana. The source of its flourishing was the eastern Roman Empire, 65 00:06:45,690 --> 00:06:51,510 which renewed and consolidated its authority not only in the capital but across its provinces, 66 00:06:51,510 --> 00:06:59,160 where new palaces, churches, aqueducts, paths and charitable institutions surpassed the monuments of ancient Rome. 67 00:06:59,160 --> 00:07:03,890 As Rome became depopulated, Constantinople expanded. 68 00:07:03,890 --> 00:07:11,070 Ravana shared in this expansion as hilarious, Gallop, Placita and local bishops patronised new buildings, 69 00:07:11,070 --> 00:07:17,460 making it an outstanding exception to the degeneration of most classical cities and settlements. 70 00:07:17,460 --> 00:07:25,560 With Constantinople approval, Theodoric integrated Eastern influence into Revengers Christian Gothic administration that 71 00:07:25,560 --> 00:07:31,530 made the king more Roman the most Romans while he conformed to Gothic ideas of kingship. 72 00:07:31,530 --> 00:07:38,820 He brought to the West a grasp of imperial traditions that consolidated a very particular combination of elements, 73 00:07:38,820 --> 00:07:46,770 an understanding of the importance of law and the administration of justice and acknowledgement of the differences in Christian belief, 74 00:07:46,770 --> 00:07:53,250 which made a degree of toleration, essential respect for superior Greek education, 75 00:07:53,250 --> 00:08:01,230 and a capacity to collaborate with the best qualified and most skilled individuals who could assist his ambitions. 76 00:08:01,230 --> 00:08:04,500 Through these features, observed and adopted in the East, 77 00:08:04,500 --> 00:08:13,830 Theodoric oversaw the symbiosis of Germanic and Roman elements in the West, which would be continued by the XRX thereafter. 78 00:08:13,830 --> 00:08:17,000 As well as this great Church of Santa pulling out Inuvo, 79 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:25,020 the Order X mausoleum is a telling witness to this integration of barbarian and imperial Roman qualities. 80 00:08:25,020 --> 00:08:33,420 Yeah, the king who are dominated the West governing in the name of Constantinople, had constructed a domed to fit for an emperor. 81 00:08:33,420 --> 00:08:40,170 Visitors even today can marvel at the single slab of history and marble that forms the roof. 82 00:08:40,170 --> 00:08:44,820 How on earth did they raise it in the early 6th century? And once installed. 83 00:08:44,820 --> 00:08:53,720 How did it survive? Most early Christian buildings that remain standing today do so because they have been continuously occupied, 84 00:08:53,720 --> 00:09:00,710 renovated and kept in use as sacred buildings in Ravenna, often by monastic communities. 85 00:09:00,710 --> 00:09:10,970 The more secular palaces, residences, assembly halls, houses and trading places that make up mediæval set of settlements rarely retain such attention. 86 00:09:10,970 --> 00:09:20,750 We're often pillaged for building material and then replaced by granda, better constructed, more fashionable or serviceable edifices. 87 00:09:20,750 --> 00:09:26,900 At some date, Theodoric Tomb was transformed from its funereal function into a memory. 88 00:09:26,900 --> 00:09:38,030 And this kept it in use. But its original purpose was not forgotten, and the king's fame was preserved in the huge marble sarcophagus still visible. 89 00:09:38,030 --> 00:09:39,230 In other Western regions, 90 00:09:39,230 --> 00:09:47,450 a similar symbiosis occurred from Visigoth in Spain to the Anglo-Saxon Frankish and Burgundian kingdoms, where court rituals. 91 00:09:47,450 --> 00:09:52,190 Imperial costume and patent's of patronage were imitated. 92 00:09:52,190 --> 00:10:01,240 But in northeast Italy, the imperial framework provided by the eastern capital in Constantinople requires particular emphasis, 93 00:10:01,240 --> 00:10:06,360 for without Byzantium there would have been no Western Europe. 94 00:10:06,360 --> 00:10:11,700 After the Arab conquests of the eastern and southern coasts of the Mediterranean, 95 00:10:11,700 --> 00:10:19,860 Constantinople provided the shield that excluded Islam from further advances into the West in 732. 96 00:10:19,860 --> 00:10:26,310 Charles Martels victory at Party A also frustrated Omayyad expansion north of the Pyrenees. 97 00:10:26,310 --> 00:10:30,090 But this was an opportunist raid seeking treasure, 98 00:10:30,090 --> 00:10:40,260 not the full scale mobilisation by land and sea that fell upon but failed to take the Queen City in seven 18. 99 00:10:40,260 --> 00:10:46,200 The significance of Constantinople in the transformation of Western Europe was not merely that of an outward shield. 100 00:10:46,200 --> 00:10:55,680 However, the imperial framework exercised a cultural hegemony that facilitated a fusion of non imperial forces 101 00:10:55,680 --> 00:11:01,590 and transmitted a variation of its own policy of acculturation to the West via the Gothic King, 102 00:11:01,590 --> 00:11:07,410 Theodoric, the bishops and the XRX through its capital in Ravana. 103 00:11:07,410 --> 00:11:15,510 The Empire sustained the ideal of efficient government sanctioned by law within the West itself in multiple ways. 104 00:11:15,510 --> 00:11:18,960 Its benefits sanctioned by both excuse me, 105 00:11:18,960 --> 00:11:27,400 its benefits commanded respect and a tinge of admiration for the Eastern emperors, even amongst the most hostile enemies. 106 00:11:27,400 --> 00:11:34,730 And in Italy, an underlying loyalty to Constantinople persisted through the sixth century and beyond. 107 00:11:34,730 --> 00:11:39,590 The influence of Byzantium was diffused, especially through Ravana. 108 00:11:39,590 --> 00:11:46,380 The city acted as an essential catalyst to the development of a society that would eventually outstrip it. 109 00:11:46,380 --> 00:11:56,200 In this way, the Christianised newsroom was a constant built in inspiration for the powers that took over in the West. 110 00:11:56,200 --> 00:12:03,550 Charlemagne has traditionally been hailed in al Gwyn's phrase as the father of Europe, as if he acted alone. 111 00:12:03,550 --> 00:12:09,580 But the foundations of Western Christendom that he exemplified were laid in Ravana, 112 00:12:09,580 --> 00:12:17,260 whose rulers XRX and bishops, scholars, doctors, lawyers, Mosiah assists and traitors Roman Angoff. 113 00:12:17,260 --> 00:12:27,750 Later, Greek and Lombard forged the first European city. 114 00:12:27,750 --> 00:12:37,980 Fantastic. Thank you, Judith. It's a magisterial way to end a book that has been both widely and universally praised in in the in the press. 115 00:12:37,980 --> 00:12:44,850 I mean, I just. Could you develop a little bit more. This idea that without Byzantium, there would be no Western Europe? 116 00:12:44,850 --> 00:12:54,820 I think that comes as a shock to many Western mediaevalists or so many listeners who think that Europe means France, Italy, Germany and Iberia. 117 00:12:54,820 --> 00:12:58,800 What role does Byzantine fit within the seeding of Ravenna? 118 00:12:58,800 --> 00:13:10,640 And then why? Why, why is it right to claim the development dependents of Western European society back on to Constantinople? 119 00:13:10,640 --> 00:13:16,070 I think people generally forget that the Mediterranean world was one, it was united. 120 00:13:16,070 --> 00:13:23,240 It was united by the sea. Even after the Arab conquests, it remained a very, very significant unifying factor. 121 00:13:23,240 --> 00:13:27,830 And within that world, the capital of the Roman Empire was in Constantinople, 122 00:13:27,830 --> 00:13:37,430 and that was recognised by nearly everybody who had to deal with imperial forces and with the influence of Roman law, 123 00:13:37,430 --> 00:13:47,420 Roman concepts of architecture, a great mout multitude of features of Roman culture which had been transposed to Constantinople. 124 00:13:47,420 --> 00:13:51,230 Constantinople, I think was the greatest achievement of the Roman Empire. 125 00:13:51,230 --> 00:14:01,280 In some ways, the construction of a new capital in the east Mediterranean that dominated not just that area, but the entire world. 126 00:14:01,280 --> 00:14:11,870 And that unity meant that there was constant coming and going and transmission of ideas and individuals and forces across the Mediterranean, 127 00:14:11,870 --> 00:14:21,500 not just at the behest of Constantinople, of course, but very much dominated by its imperial force and power. 128 00:14:21,500 --> 00:14:29,660 And I think it's very important to remember that in this in United World, of course, there were hostile forces, there were many, 129 00:14:29,660 --> 00:14:38,750 many opponents of Constantinople, but there was a deference and an understanding of the role that Constantinople played. 130 00:14:38,750 --> 00:14:44,840 And I suspect that what we see in Ravenna is have I had not expected to find it, 131 00:14:44,840 --> 00:14:50,540 but it is so pronounced that you get a very clear indication of the way in which Ravana 132 00:14:50,540 --> 00:14:57,620 linked the two halves of the Mediterranean world and that it is its position as a pivot, 133 00:14:57,620 --> 00:15:04,220 as a link between the two halves, gave it a very specific constant in a polished and flavour. 134 00:15:04,220 --> 00:15:14,540 And in this way, I would argue, the influence of the East Mediterranean continues to flow into the west and over the Alps to northern Europe, 135 00:15:14,540 --> 00:15:25,640 where, after all, the Frankish King, Clovis decided to celebrate his rise to power by assuming the title patrician and holding 136 00:15:25,640 --> 00:15:32,450 races and entering Paris in a chariot scattering gold coin as if he was an emperor. 137 00:15:32,450 --> 00:15:40,680 And those are the ways in which you can see very clearly that there was a very dominant ideology of power. 138 00:15:40,680 --> 00:15:49,060 And this was manifested in Ravenna by the authorities sent from Constantinople after 540 80. 139 00:15:49,060 --> 00:15:51,710 The people I asked Professor Cameron for comment. 140 00:15:51,710 --> 00:15:59,110 I mean, what one thing that I think is interesting about Rabina is would you say something about where does it come from? 141 00:15:59,110 --> 00:16:03,470 What what why does Remender blossom from from nothing? 142 00:16:03,470 --> 00:16:08,160 And where does it go? And I don't mean the metaphorical revenge. I mean the actual revenge. 143 00:16:08,160 --> 00:16:17,390 Where does Ravana spring from and why does it not take on the trajectory of Constantinople or Rome or other big cities that carry on? 144 00:16:17,390 --> 00:16:23,540 How to explain this efflorescence of a three 300 year periods? What did you hear in the city? 145 00:16:23,540 --> 00:16:30,470 Well, clearly, it drew on its history as a maritime port, the most important port in the Adriatic. 146 00:16:30,470 --> 00:16:36,470 Julius Caesar had decided that it would be the base for the eastern Mediterranean fleet. 147 00:16:36,470 --> 00:16:41,450 And seen him near Rome was to be the base for the western Mediterranean beach. 148 00:16:41,450 --> 00:16:50,090 And a very large port had been constructed on an inland lake where 250 ships could be protected. 149 00:16:50,090 --> 00:16:55,160 And there really aren't other ports down the Italian coast of the Adriatic. 150 00:16:55,160 --> 00:17:05,780 It's a very long sandy shore, extending with very little harbour protective harbour space. 151 00:17:05,780 --> 00:17:10,580 So Ravenna, well through its port classic, which was linked to the city, 152 00:17:10,580 --> 00:17:19,250 became the base for shipbuilding, for training navies, for sailing, for maritime activities. 153 00:17:19,250 --> 00:17:31,440 And from that history of engagement in the sea, on the sea, Ravana drew a great deal of its importance and status. 154 00:17:31,440 --> 00:17:35,420 But it had also been recognised as a great city with strong walls. 155 00:17:35,420 --> 00:17:44,240 And the Emperor Claudius had built a very elegant quarter. Outré are in the walls, a sort of major ceremonial entrance. 156 00:17:44,240 --> 00:17:50,180 And it had access to the river through the River Po to the Po Valley. 157 00:17:50,180 --> 00:17:54,800 And therefore good transport, river transport up to middle lan. 158 00:17:54,800 --> 00:18:01,010 And I think the main reason why it became it flourished so well was that when the emperors decided they couldn't 159 00:18:01,010 --> 00:18:08,890 actually defend the city of Milan from barbarian attack and Annoyance decided that he would moved her event. 160 00:18:08,890 --> 00:18:16,940 Now it became a centre of imperial power, surrounded in this very marshy area of the estuary, 161 00:18:16,940 --> 00:18:24,170 which meant that it was quite difficult to approach by land and sieges were generally unsuccessful. 162 00:18:24,170 --> 00:18:32,600 And it managed to sustain its imperial ideology within what had been a smaller centre, but which grew and expanded. 163 00:18:32,600 --> 00:18:35,330 Of course, as soon as the Imperial Court arrived, 164 00:18:35,330 --> 00:18:45,140 because all the other followers of the court arrived with it and huge numbers of bureaucrats and military contingents and so on. 165 00:18:45,140 --> 00:18:51,100 So it expanded very rapidly. And then at the point where it finally. 166 00:18:51,100 --> 00:18:59,530 Gave up this imperial role. We could put it perhaps around the time of Charlemagne because the Carolingian 167 00:18:59,530 --> 00:19:07,990 conquest in STATT established new a new northern governorship in in Ravana, 168 00:19:07,990 --> 00:19:16,990 which was, of course, paralleled in many other Italian cities where the current engines established Garzon's cultural centres. 169 00:19:16,990 --> 00:19:24,370 Pavia was obviously a very important centre for the Lombards and for Charles. 170 00:19:24,370 --> 00:19:37,480 And in a way, it became one of many cities rather than the source of urban renewal and sustained in urban culture. 171 00:19:37,480 --> 00:19:48,790 But its its main role past to Venice very gradually through the development of a Venice, is the great maritime trading centre, 172 00:19:48,790 --> 00:19:53,980 which gradually replaced ravenous harbour as its silted up, always allowed to silt up big, 173 00:19:53,980 --> 00:19:57,880 partly because the Venetians had indeed adopted that role, 174 00:19:57,880 --> 00:20:06,280 taken it over and transformed it into a very much larger connexion through their determination to trade 175 00:20:06,280 --> 00:20:15,210 with the Arab states and through Alexandria and these Mediterranean ports with places much further east. 176 00:20:15,210 --> 00:20:24,960 So in a way, the handover to Venice, which was, of course, not at all conceived as a handover by Ravana, 177 00:20:24,960 --> 00:20:32,860 gave that it gave Venice the key role which Ravana had played previously. 178 00:20:32,860 --> 00:20:42,970 One of the things you do so elegantly in the book is to show that Tabora Burnett is the beneficiary of a robe and Milan, the Western seizures, 179 00:20:42,970 --> 00:20:49,870 cardiac arrest of the invasion's equally that pass on being passed on to Charlamagne halogens 180 00:20:49,870 --> 00:20:56,560 and also to Bennett since the golden period for Ravenna is in response to specific circumstance. 181 00:20:56,560 --> 00:21:04,300 And this long continuity, I think, is why the case you make of Hobbit's is the crucible of Europe. 182 00:21:04,300 --> 00:21:09,720 I know that Colorado is going to talk about the carnage. It's an Charlamagne, a Professor Cameron Abel, 183 00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:17,530 would you like to come in and join us to talk to come with a response to what you just spoken about and about the book itself? 184 00:21:17,530 --> 00:21:25,600 Yes, thank you. Well, first of all, thank you, Judith, for such a lovely book. It's marvellous to have an opportunity to celebrate it. 185 00:21:25,600 --> 00:21:29,950 Why is it important? Well, it gives us a different picture for Havana. 186 00:21:29,950 --> 00:21:35,260 I think that's the important thing about it. And Rabiner, as you say, was an imperial city. 187 00:21:35,260 --> 00:21:40,810 It was the capital in the first half century of the western Roman Empire. 188 00:21:40,810 --> 00:21:47,470 It became the seat of Fielder Exit Goss, and then it became an imperial soccer again. 189 00:21:47,470 --> 00:21:53,620 And it was the the sort of the the centre for Byzantium in Italy. 190 00:21:53,620 --> 00:21:58,750 I think the first of all, Ravana is not just about its mosaics. 191 00:21:58,750 --> 00:22:04,360 Most of us or many of us will have been to a better and seen them, and they are absolutely wonderful, marvellous. 192 00:22:04,360 --> 00:22:11,980 But what you've given them this book is a history over several centuries with change and development. 193 00:22:11,980 --> 00:22:16,700 And I think the history of the city is not told in an accessible way. 194 00:22:16,700 --> 00:22:21,640 And that's what you've done in the book, that the mosaics are absolutely beautiful and wonderful. 195 00:22:21,640 --> 00:22:26,440 Of course they are. And the buildings are in model shape now. Form visits them. 196 00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:32,180 But it's this long history as an administrative centre, an imperial centre, 197 00:22:32,180 --> 00:22:40,150 a royal capital and a very with a very mixed population, which I think is very interesting. 198 00:22:40,150 --> 00:22:45,940 And to me, one of the fascinating things about Ravana is that it has this collection of papyri, 199 00:22:45,940 --> 00:22:50,110 of evidence, of letters and wills and documents on papyrus, 200 00:22:50,110 --> 00:23:00,400 and they're preserved from the late six century onwards because of, I suppose, of the climate and the witness and the Marché character there. 201 00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:04,840 Somehow we have this power, which we don't have from other Italian cities, 202 00:23:04,840 --> 00:23:16,180 and they tell us about the population of the people and their lives, the property, the legal's quarrels with each other. 203 00:23:16,180 --> 00:23:22,300 It's about women, slaves, free people, military, because there was a military presence. 204 00:23:22,300 --> 00:23:26,530 Women, men and and their names are fascinating. 205 00:23:26,530 --> 00:23:31,090 As you bring out in the book the names, some of the names are still Gothic. 206 00:23:31,090 --> 00:23:35,350 Some of the names are Latin because they're Roman. Some of them are mixed. 207 00:23:35,350 --> 00:23:42,820 So we have this vibrant sense of a living community with personal access to some of its citizens. 208 00:23:42,820 --> 00:23:47,950 And that's almost unparalleled except in Egypt in the period. 209 00:23:47,950 --> 00:23:52,810 So I think that's really exciting to go back to the mosaics. 210 00:23:52,810 --> 00:23:58,780 Probably the most iconic picture we have of Justinian and Theodora, 211 00:23:58,780 --> 00:24:04,570 the emperor and empress of Byzantium in the sixth century is in the church of San Bertoli. 212 00:24:04,570 --> 00:24:08,790 But some bertoli was started under the ostracods already. 213 00:24:08,790 --> 00:24:14,470 It wasn't built by Justinian. Most people think it was built by Justinian. It was started under the gods. 214 00:24:14,470 --> 00:24:25,510 It became Byzantine. It was built and finished, rather, while the war fought by Justinian to reconquer Italy was still going on. 215 00:24:25,510 --> 00:24:31,930 And it I think it's an extraordinary, very, very complex building and which is also not often brought out. 216 00:24:31,930 --> 00:24:37,980 But your sort of sense of organic development gives it the perspective. 217 00:24:37,980 --> 00:24:46,260 And I'm very struck also at something you mention that this these buildings and these churches were remodelled to suit the different administrations. 218 00:24:46,260 --> 00:24:54,570 So the great church, the Palace Church of Theodoric, the Strogoff was remodelled once the Byzantine said won the war in Italy. 219 00:24:54,570 --> 00:25:05,970 And the the actual depiction of Theodorakis palace was removed, but it still remained and became absolutely central for the Byzantine administration. 220 00:25:05,970 --> 00:25:11,340 So it's it's a really organic story that you can tell. 221 00:25:11,340 --> 00:25:18,630 And you have some interesting perspectives. For instance, you say that some Rivendell was acted upon. 222 00:25:18,630 --> 00:25:23,100 It didn't it wasn't an agent so much. It was acted upon from outside. 223 00:25:23,100 --> 00:25:27,570 It became the seat of the Byzantine administration in Italy. 224 00:25:27,570 --> 00:25:33,990 It didn't, which included Rome, incidentally, from the late sixth century onwards. 225 00:25:33,990 --> 00:25:39,390 And then you also say it could, after all, have been the Venice of its day. 226 00:25:39,390 --> 00:25:50,250 But it didn't manage to achieve that. And you just explained a bit why that was that that that port, as had been so important, silted up. 227 00:25:50,250 --> 00:25:56,880 Religion is important. The archbishop prick's of Ravenna became important in the 7th century. 228 00:25:56,880 --> 00:26:03,390 But that was a time when in Rome, which was in a way much less important than Ravella at that time. 229 00:26:03,390 --> 00:26:08,190 Rome in Rome, the popes of this century were mainly Greek in origin. 230 00:26:08,190 --> 00:26:15,600 Just really extraordinary. So there's so many links and so many so many complications here. 231 00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:26,730 And then in your conclusion, which you you you gave us, you link it in a very, very interesting way with your first book, 232 00:26:26,730 --> 00:26:32,510 The Formation of Christian Christendom, because in that book, I'm afraid I can't remember the date of publication now. 233 00:26:32,510 --> 00:26:36,030 But you can tell us probably anyway, in that first book, 234 00:26:36,030 --> 00:26:43,140 you you you wrote about this period during if when we were probably now call it 235 00:26:43,140 --> 00:26:47,280 the transition from late antiquity to the Middle Ages or as many people would. 236 00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:53,820 But you prefer the term Christendom. You don't use the term late antiquity very much. 237 00:26:53,820 --> 00:26:57,860 And I think that's you make explicit that link with your first book. 238 00:26:57,860 --> 00:27:01,680 And it's it's a very engaging to find a scholar doing that since. 239 00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:06,300 So it obviously means that you're coming. I won't say full circle. 240 00:27:06,300 --> 00:27:07,780 That wouldn't be that wouldn't be fair. 241 00:27:07,780 --> 00:27:17,820 But you are you are coming back and you're making your early work relevant and to live again in what you've written about Ravana. 242 00:27:17,820 --> 00:27:24,690 So and finally then you make this move to the West, which is more comrade's territory than this is mine. 243 00:27:24,690 --> 00:27:32,430 But I think it's a very important book because it gives us another perspective on developments 244 00:27:32,430 --> 00:27:39,050 between Byzantium and the West in that crucial period after they had just done it. 245 00:27:39,050 --> 00:27:48,480 What what people call the reconquest didn't last very long. In the sixth century into that period when Charlemagne begins to dominate. 246 00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:53,530 So I loved it. Thank you. Fantastic. 247 00:27:53,530 --> 00:27:57,540 That's wonderful, April and filled with insights. 248 00:27:57,540 --> 00:28:04,740 As usual, Conrad. You want to take us on later towards the end of rebellion into the Carolingian Charlamagne at what what, 249 00:28:04,740 --> 00:28:08,290 what, what Ravana means from a Western perspective. 250 00:28:08,290 --> 00:28:14,140 So I'm sorry, I'm obviously the boorish Westerner, the Byzantine face, and I'm happy to play that part. 251 00:28:14,140 --> 00:28:18,400 I didn't make it to Havana till 2017. Didn't know what to expect. 252 00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:22,030 Don't really like high culture. But it blew me away. 253 00:28:22,030 --> 00:28:31,640 And I own. And I have to. You mean you go to these unprepossessing brick buildings and then you are literally in in in another world. 254 00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:37,260 And so it's an equally boys to kind of gawping at the city still. 255 00:28:37,260 --> 00:28:40,720 And I'm aware that I mean, it's harder to make it to Havana right now. 256 00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:44,200 And Judith, New right in the introduction, if you've never visited, 257 00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:48,560 you've missed amazing experience and extraordinary delight, which this book aims to recreate. 258 00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:55,390 And you can't have known when you wrote those words. What we will be looking at now and you've given us, I think, 259 00:28:55,390 --> 00:29:01,180 really a pilgrim guide in in the age of Kobe, for which we have so many reasons to be thankful. 260 00:29:01,180 --> 00:29:08,320 And I'm reaching here to draw waste back into discussion, given his work on pilgrimage. 261 00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:14,650 And I hope he tells us about the Rasmus character, Mr. Stay Home. 262 00:29:14,650 --> 00:29:19,630 You manage Imus, you know, who is a hit figure for our age. 263 00:29:19,630 --> 00:29:24,080 And what I learnt from West is because so is the programme guides. 264 00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:31,550 Necessarily meditate about the powers of representation and their limits so that the way that a book can take us to a place. 265 00:29:31,550 --> 00:29:36,710 But also how it it can't and how and how it does something will always fall short. 266 00:29:36,710 --> 00:29:47,520 And so that's how that's really how I. I read you that in you you meditate throughout the whole book about the power of images and they've 267 00:29:47,520 --> 00:29:52,640 all set them in the kind of the central one is the image of Justinian and Theodore and Sam Vitale. 268 00:29:52,640 --> 00:30:02,330 And they never visited the city. They were never there. So it's an astonishing recreation of of imperial presence. 269 00:30:02,330 --> 00:30:03,620 You're a power to distance. 270 00:30:03,620 --> 00:30:12,770 I mean, that should control would contend for the greatest achievement of kind of how how to be a ruler over a place when you never go there. 271 00:30:12,770 --> 00:30:22,910 Which is so difficult in a pre modern context. And that's the image which is an I entirely by this, which Charlamagne Boyish Westerner visiting. 272 00:30:22,910 --> 00:30:27,010 He doesn't know how to be an emperor until he goes inside that church. 273 00:30:27,010 --> 00:30:33,860 And then he says, that's what I'm gonna do. And as an issue, is it your conclusion kind of says that you're right. 274 00:30:33,860 --> 00:30:39,120 I mean, what you've really done amongst many things is to is to kind of make. 275 00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:44,450 And you refer to him or a Perens great dictum without Muhammed Charlamagne would have been impossible. 276 00:30:44,450 --> 00:30:51,530 I mean, he argues that in general terms, without the conquest of Islam, there wouldn't have been NW in Europe, would've been thrown back on its own. 277 00:30:51,530 --> 00:30:55,250 Resources will keep looking at the Mediterranean. 278 00:30:55,250 --> 00:31:00,590 But you've shown us how, you know, without Ravana, Charlemagne would have been impossible in directly and intimately. 279 00:31:00,590 --> 00:31:05,390 He had no script about how to be a ruler until he saw those mosaics. 280 00:31:05,390 --> 00:31:10,400 And then he went off in data. And I said, I think that's that's very compelling. 281 00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:20,570 It's a story. At the same time. And in some ways, my favourite thing about the book is the sadness, the undertow of what we've lost. 282 00:31:20,570 --> 00:31:28,220 We don't know, despite. These mosaics, we know the name of none of the people who made them, you emphasised at the beginning. 283 00:31:28,220 --> 00:31:34,130 We don't have the Ravana Annells exception to Canpages some 10th century mayors like Manscape. 284 00:31:34,130 --> 00:31:41,990 We don't have the Chronicle of Ravana, the 9th century or 9th century forebear Agnel, US, who kind of writes the history of the city. 285 00:31:41,990 --> 00:31:47,120 His manuscript, which exists only in the 15th century, kind of horrible 15th century manuscript. 286 00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:52,850 It ends. It ends abruptly. We don't have the end of his story. 287 00:31:52,850 --> 00:32:04,640 And what were the Chronicle ends and I and I. I want to end with this is that, you know, he tells us that the one day the bread in the city, 288 00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:10,580 Char's in the oven, that the judge's bread charge that archbishop's bread and he hates the archbishop. 289 00:32:10,580 --> 00:32:19,460 I mean, this whole great story about Mediterranean connectivity kind of dwindles down into this petty quarrel between clerics and agnello ends. 290 00:32:19,460 --> 00:32:25,050 You know, having done this great sweep and from from from, you know, from the late Roman Empire onwards, 291 00:32:25,050 --> 00:32:31,190 he ends with this image of black bread in the oven for the bishop, whom he, you know, with whom is in conflict. 292 00:32:31,190 --> 00:32:38,920 And I hope our own hopes the world don't turn to ash today quite specifically. 293 00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:43,070 But I think you've seen what you've shown us. This is really the same. 294 00:32:43,070 --> 00:32:47,170 Both the glittering legacy, but also also the, you know, the power of forgetting. 295 00:32:47,170 --> 00:32:51,470 And your book kind of holds that balance in a very poignant way. 296 00:32:51,470 --> 00:32:57,120 So thank you. Do you want to come back? 297 00:32:57,120 --> 00:33:02,010 Of those lovely comments from both our commentator. That's is. 298 00:33:02,010 --> 00:33:07,970 Thank you so much. These are very, very encouraging and unsupportive and helpful comments. 299 00:33:07,970 --> 00:33:14,190 And I am very grateful to you for looking at the book and seeing it in these new ways. 300 00:33:14,190 --> 00:33:20,880 It was surprising to me that I'd never expected to write a history based on the city, 301 00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:26,640 nor did I think nor did I really think I would find such curious things. 302 00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:33,990 But I was really amazed by the Goths who sign in Gothic on that on that papyri. 303 00:33:33,990 --> 00:33:40,290 I mean, they're still using the scripts that have been devised for them in the mid 4th century. 304 00:33:40,290 --> 00:33:42,570 And they are obviously venerated, 305 00:33:42,570 --> 00:33:52,650 hitting that their own Christian faith in in Gothic using Gothic hymns and the translations of the liturgy that were made by Rufina for them. 306 00:33:52,650 --> 00:34:00,180 So there's a very a very Leive sense of the Aryan Christian definition. 307 00:34:00,180 --> 00:34:02,970 And it's it's it's it's a living thing. 308 00:34:02,970 --> 00:34:12,900 And these people are just greatly discomforted by the demand that all Aryan churches shall be handed over to the Catholic authorities, 309 00:34:12,900 --> 00:34:20,210 which is what happens in the five, six days and why we have a remodelled mosaic in Santa, 310 00:34:20,210 --> 00:34:28,350 Apolinar, know over the overall referred to with the hands that are left on the columns of the of 311 00:34:28,350 --> 00:34:34,860 the palace when the individuals were taken away and replaced by beautiful curtains. 312 00:34:34,860 --> 00:34:44,910 And the image of Theodoric, as I believe, was replaced by as egg, that these it is very curious that as there's so much going on in the city, 313 00:34:44,910 --> 00:34:51,480 and I do think that Charlamagne learn to be an emperor by going there and he would not have got that by going to Rome, 314 00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:58,590 although there were very, very fine mosaics in Rome in the late eighth and ninth centuries. 315 00:34:58,590 --> 00:35:01,980 And there were indeed statues of old Roman emperors. 316 00:35:01,980 --> 00:35:11,010 But I think the notion that Justinian provided him was how to be an early mediaeval emperor with the the 317 00:35:11,010 --> 00:35:18,330 liturgical function of an emperor and leading a procession towards the altar with a big offering of gold. 318 00:35:18,330 --> 00:35:28,980 And of course, the most extraordinary thing is that Theodora is opposite in the space, which is the Weimar, the the Alps, where women are not allowed. 319 00:35:28,980 --> 00:35:33,720 So it's a it's a really astonishing thing that her portrait is there and has survived. 320 00:35:33,720 --> 00:35:41,070 But again, it's because they have they were they inspirers of that particular church. 321 00:35:41,070 --> 00:35:51,420 And I, I imagine it was quite a common thing for people to say we should display our emperor and empress. 322 00:35:51,420 --> 00:35:58,890 It just has not survived in any other place. Constantinople must have been full of images of Theodora. 323 00:35:58,890 --> 00:36:05,320 We know of statues, but none have survived. So we left with this. 324 00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:12,430 Very striking picture, which I think greatly influenced chairman. 325 00:36:12,430 --> 00:36:17,430 Why is it Judith, right, so sensual and so well known artistically? 326 00:36:17,430 --> 00:36:22,080 Why has it? Why is it so poorly exploited by. Why has it been so poorly? 327 00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:27,090 It's noted by historians. Why does it get glossed over? Why? Why. 328 00:36:27,090 --> 00:36:34,020 Why do you spent nine years on this wonderful monograph and no one else has thought to do so? 329 00:36:34,020 --> 00:36:41,820 Lots of people have written about revenge. But primarily because it has the beautiful mosaics and many of them are art historians. 330 00:36:41,820 --> 00:36:48,060 And I'm not. So I can see that it's such a stunning city to visit, 331 00:36:48,060 --> 00:36:55,980 partly because it's small and you can walk from one church to another and in every area and in the remains of the palaces, 332 00:36:55,980 --> 00:37:05,310 you see these spectacular mosaics. So it it it is a very it's accessible to the art historian and it demands an 333 00:37:05,310 --> 00:37:10,770 explanation of how and why these mosaics were put up and the buildings themselves. 334 00:37:10,770 --> 00:37:15,840 After all, the octagon of sand, Vitale is a very unusual building. 335 00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:25,350 Churches were not normally built with eight sides and raising domes was still quite problematic in the West or other it wasn't done. 336 00:37:25,350 --> 00:37:37,410 And therefore, these initiatives which were supposed to have come from the east, not necessarily from Constantinople, but possibly via Constantinople. 337 00:37:37,410 --> 00:37:45,690 These were new ways of building, new ways of decorating that set a standard which was not very common. 338 00:37:45,690 --> 00:37:56,490 So art historians are necessarily required to visit Ravana and discuss it, but they may not be so interested in the bishops. 339 00:37:56,490 --> 00:38:03,510 And although I think Deborah DeLeon's did a wonderful job with translating and the account of Agon 340 00:38:03,510 --> 00:38:11,700 is there is there is a lot more to discover about the history of the city and its inhabitants, 341 00:38:11,700 --> 00:38:16,440 mainly from the papyri, but also from chance references, visits by, for example, 342 00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:22,080 Bishop Kammenos from accessor who went all the way to Havana to appeal to the Emperor 343 00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:30,640 for tax relief and the Empress Galla Placita received him and pinched his relics. 344 00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:35,760 And when he died, sent him home and in a sealed coffin so that he could be buried back in exile. 345 00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:41,100 So there were visitors to the city. There were constant, constant embassies coming and going. 346 00:38:41,100 --> 00:38:48,510 And that's the sort of aspect that you don't get if you're just looking at the churches and the beautiful art. 347 00:38:48,510 --> 00:38:54,930 Does this I mean, is Rihanna truly exceptional? From a Byzantine perspective, I mean, 348 00:38:54,930 --> 00:39:01,050 does periodisation mean that we should look at Venus and similar kinds of ways to Tarabella as a sort of an outpost? 349 00:39:01,050 --> 00:39:06,090 This is a right and it is Ravana seen as a rival at any point in Constantinople. 350 00:39:06,090 --> 00:39:10,880 Do we see cities the size and shape of the eastern Mediterranean elsewhere that plays similar functions and roles? 351 00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:20,190 And if not, if not, why not? Oh, I think as soon as you look at great cities like Alexandria and York, the major cities of Asia Minor, 352 00:39:20,190 --> 00:39:28,500 you immediately see flourishing centres of of merchants and and Christian beliefs and arguments 353 00:39:28,500 --> 00:39:35,670 and teaching and scholarship and all the things that we associate with great urban centres. 354 00:39:35,670 --> 00:39:37,080 The striking thing, of course, 355 00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:49,980 is that in the West there was a very marked city decline and these elements of urban life dwindled or until they were taken over by bishops 356 00:39:49,980 --> 00:39:57,660 and restored in a way that meant that the paths could still continue to function and certain charitable institutions were constructed. 357 00:39:57,660 --> 00:40:08,520 But the notion of schools and the teaching of law and the idea that there should be an urban culture which was which drew on its impure, 358 00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:16,800 its Roman rule, Roman roots that dwindled or was actively destroyed. 359 00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:22,590 After all, there were many, many, many, many cities were sacked, burned to the ground, 360 00:40:22,590 --> 00:40:31,050 and there was terrible destruction in the course of the so-called barbarian invasions of the fifth and sixth centuries, fourth century. 361 00:40:31,050 --> 00:40:37,560 So you get a Ravana was spared those very violent attacks. 362 00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:46,740 And it had this self conscious role that it took on as as an imperial capital when hoariest moved there. 363 00:40:46,740 --> 00:40:55,110 So it became it adopted a new status and became exceptional in the mediaeval west. 364 00:40:55,110 --> 00:41:09,350 The early mediaeval west. If you're a huge growth, can you remind us of the size of the population? 365 00:41:09,350 --> 00:41:14,990 Do we know? I'm sorry, it's Ash. It was a very large city, was it? 366 00:41:14,990 --> 00:41:27,560 No, it wasn't a very large city. And the city walls today, which survive in large part, indicate that it was quite a compact, small Roman optimum. 367 00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:34,820 And it was based on a very clear traditional Roman city plan. 368 00:41:34,820 --> 00:41:44,270 But it had large suburbs and with villas have been excavated in the suburbs and very large cemeteries outside the city walls. 369 00:41:44,270 --> 00:41:52,970 And this area, beyond the city walls, was eventually linked to the harbour at classes by another centre called Caesarea. 370 00:41:52,970 --> 00:42:02,360 And therefore, there was a there was a concentration of population in the in that area around Ravana between Ravenna and Cassatt's, 371 00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:10,070 which meant that there was a there was a there was a lot of space for new inhabitants, a new population to grow. 372 00:42:10,070 --> 00:42:14,840 And they did so that it became it, although the city itself is small. 373 00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:27,650 I guess the surrounding population that drew on Ravana as its centre was quite significantly larger than other cities in Italy at the time. 374 00:42:27,650 --> 00:42:33,530 And here, of course, we get into terrible problem of demographics because what were the populations? 375 00:42:33,530 --> 00:42:42,340 What was the population of Rome in the mid 5th century? After the vandal attack of 455. 376 00:42:42,340 --> 00:42:49,150 It must have been very, very much reduced from its third century heyday. 377 00:42:49,150 --> 00:42:57,940 But by how much? Certainly the reuse of a building material from some of the insulate and the repairs 378 00:42:57,940 --> 00:43:04,930 to theatres because they were falling down and the repairs to the Palatine palaces, 379 00:43:04,930 --> 00:43:10,150 all that carried on as Rome restored itself. 380 00:43:10,150 --> 00:43:16,810 But in Ravenna, there was new building, a Denovo, and it was very. 381 00:43:16,810 --> 00:43:19,930 And it was very striking that it was so ambitious. 382 00:43:19,930 --> 00:43:27,370 And it obviously catered to a larger population and a mixed population because there had to be churches for the area. 383 00:43:27,370 --> 00:43:32,450 And churches for the Catholics until the five 60s. 384 00:43:32,450 --> 00:43:36,060 But it's the very I think thinking of the Charlemagne does. 385 00:43:36,060 --> 00:43:41,860 It's the compactness of the centre, the buildings in the centre that must have made a colossal impression. 386 00:43:41,860 --> 00:43:45,580 And they wouldn't have got that going to Rome. Rome's are dispersed. 387 00:43:45,580 --> 00:43:51,190 And as you said, I'm sure, as you say, there would have been much more to say than we can say now. 388 00:43:51,190 --> 00:43:58,360 But even so, not so easily. Not so easy to take in that sort of compactness of those buildings. 389 00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:05,020 And they the pictures, the pictorial decoration on the liturgical function must've made a castle impression. 390 00:44:05,020 --> 00:44:15,370 And you wrote in your book about how you saw it in 1959. I think I saw it in 1963 on a car drive down all the way to Rome. 391 00:44:15,370 --> 00:44:20,200 And. And it made a great impression, but it wasn't in great shape in those days. 392 00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:29,380 No, no. I didn't go back until much, much later, until the nineteen nineties, and by which time wonderful restoration had been done. 393 00:44:29,380 --> 00:44:34,660 Yes, I was really astonished. I mean, it made more impression on me than I can. 394 00:44:34,660 --> 00:44:40,170 Different kind of impression. That's presumably the impression that Charlemagne would have got. 395 00:44:40,170 --> 00:44:50,310 Well, I think the city had been restored and and it had remained a very important city centre 396 00:44:50,310 --> 00:44:57,120 and the XRX had built and repaired and it it was still very much wasn't expanding, 397 00:44:57,120 --> 00:45:02,640 perhaps, but it was not shrinking into a tiny settlement. 398 00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:11,700 And certainly the bishops had acquired vast holdings of land and were drawing on taxation and contributions in kind from many, 399 00:45:11,700 --> 00:45:19,980 many estates, which meant that the Church of Ravana was extraordinarily rich, not as rich as the as the Church of Rome. 400 00:45:19,980 --> 00:45:29,340 But it drew on similar resources and it had the capacity to build and maintain the ecclesiastical buildings. 401 00:45:29,340 --> 00:45:35,410 And of course, the walls still remained a very important defence. 402 00:45:35,410 --> 00:45:40,890 Ravenna was was not becoming of a backwater. 403 00:45:40,890 --> 00:45:44,970 So the bishops continued to think of it as a very important centre. 404 00:45:44,970 --> 00:45:57,540 And indeed, they had the wealth to keep it in as a as important and influential in northern Italy. 405 00:45:57,540 --> 00:46:02,120 Great. Well, we've got just about an hour left, so I got to hand back to Wes. 406 00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:07,200 I did have some questions from the audience of those viewing. 407 00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:13,100 If you've got questions, please type them in the Q&A box and we'll try to get rogues to asking them. 408 00:46:13,100 --> 00:46:17,200 Wes, welcome back. Your name has been already mentioned by Conrads. 409 00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:22,780 And so give us your ideas. I think about about ridgeback movements of people. 410 00:46:22,780 --> 00:46:27,740 Why didn't you, I think, lead us through some of the questions. Thank you very much. 411 00:46:27,740 --> 00:46:37,110 Yeah. I have thought about Ravana mainly in relation to 16th century pilgrims for whom it was a fortress city for the most part, 412 00:46:37,110 --> 00:46:40,700 but also, of course, as well as the mosaics as Ravana. 413 00:46:40,700 --> 00:46:47,220 There's the monster, a Ramanna, which is one of the most sort of celebrated monstrous birth of the 16th century. 414 00:46:47,220 --> 00:46:51,630 And it's a complicated allegorical story, but we can save that for another time. 415 00:46:51,630 --> 00:46:58,230 Movement of peoples, I think, is one of the questions. I'll take the two questions that people may be able to see in the Q&A in reverse order. 416 00:46:58,230 --> 00:47:03,120 Movement of Peoples is one of the questions that's come up. So Marcus looks and says. 417 00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:09,780 Can you tell us a bit more about the heterogeneous society that you're that you sort of write about in minute Rabiner? 418 00:47:09,780 --> 00:47:17,220 Which ethnic groups. Can we find in the city? And also which sources, material and or written do they appear? 419 00:47:17,220 --> 00:47:20,250 How do we know about them? Effectively. 420 00:47:20,250 --> 00:47:29,100 We know about the Goths because they preserved writings in Gothic, the Gothic Bibles, which must have been some of them very, 421 00:47:29,100 --> 00:47:36,540 very spectacular, like the one preserved at Upsala gold and silver lettering on purple dyed parchment. 422 00:47:36,540 --> 00:47:42,450 Really spectacular. But, of course, there were other, smaller, less and less important liturgical books. 423 00:47:42,450 --> 00:47:50,460 And recently, a very fine new edition has been made of one of the translations of the Vita's patrimony. 424 00:47:50,460 --> 00:47:56,820 These are the lives of the Desert Fathers, which were very, very popular throughout the Mediterranean world. 425 00:47:56,820 --> 00:48:02,670 They were translated from Greek and Syriac into Latin. And the copy was made in around 700. 426 00:48:02,670 --> 00:48:06,840 And it has been preserved in Ravana. It's it's fine. 427 00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:10,560 New additions showing that there were copyists. 428 00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:20,740 There were there was a demand for four books and that stories of the Desert Fathers were more popular than the. 429 00:48:20,740 --> 00:48:26,890 The number of people and the different sorts of people numbers are very difficult. 430 00:48:26,890 --> 00:48:31,420 But we know that there were synagogues and there were there was a Jewish community. 431 00:48:31,420 --> 00:48:39,730 There's been an archaeological find, which is the neck of an amphorae, which has Shalom written on it in Hebrew. 432 00:48:39,730 --> 00:48:48,370 And it's in the archaeological museum as an indication that there were communities using that Hebrew. 433 00:48:48,370 --> 00:48:58,390 And indeed, one synagogue was converted into a church and six synagogues in the fourth and fifth centuries were attacked by the Christians. 434 00:48:58,390 --> 00:49:09,010 But in the case of one attack, the bishop was ordered to finance the repayment, the repair to the synagogue. 435 00:49:09,010 --> 00:49:19,180 A very interesting notion of the need to allow the Jews to celebrate their own faith apart from the Goths and the Jews. 436 00:49:19,180 --> 00:49:24,040 What we find are references to many, many merchants of different origins. 437 00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:28,780 Syrian merchants, silk merchants from the east. 438 00:49:28,780 --> 00:49:31,990 People who sign their names on the papyrus in Greek. 439 00:49:31,990 --> 00:49:40,090 Now, is this an affectation that they simply wanted to present themselves as very eastern people, educated Greek people? 440 00:49:40,090 --> 00:49:45,830 Or were they actually Greek merchant merchants from farms from Aleppo? 441 00:49:45,830 --> 00:49:48,460 Antioch is mentioned as a place. 442 00:49:48,460 --> 00:49:56,110 And of course, Connexions with Alexandria were very pronounced that the papyrus may have been imported from Alexandria. 443 00:49:56,110 --> 00:50:02,290 So there's a there's a great range of different pop of peoples in the city. 444 00:50:02,290 --> 00:50:08,440 And the interesting thing is that they appear to have cohabited without the terrible 445 00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:14,740 conflicts that we have documented in places like Milan undies under Saint Ambrose, 446 00:50:14,740 --> 00:50:19,120 where when the Aryan Christians met the Catholic Christians in procession, 447 00:50:19,120 --> 00:50:24,760 they just they fought and there was terrible violence over the control of churches. 448 00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:32,350 Preventer's appears to have had a very clear policy. These are the churches which the Catholic bishops are are building. 449 00:50:32,350 --> 00:50:40,720 These are the churches which the area and Christians are using. They have their own baths for the for them, for the presbyteries, for the clergy. 450 00:50:40,720 --> 00:50:49,240 We have our baths for the Catholics. It's all. Well, of course, there must have been rouse because the synagogues were attacked. 451 00:50:49,240 --> 00:50:56,290 But nonetheless, that appears to have been built in a certain degree of toleration and of admitting 452 00:50:56,290 --> 00:51:01,300 that people had different faiths and had to be allowed to celebrate them. 453 00:51:01,300 --> 00:51:06,970 Before you move to the other question, which which does address that question of doctrinal difference as well. 454 00:51:06,970 --> 00:51:11,810 I wonder if I could repeat Peter's question from earlier, which is how exceptional? 455 00:51:11,810 --> 00:51:21,530 And I mean, you seem to be arguing then that Ravana is actually fairly exceptional in that regard, including in relation to the sort of multi. 456 00:51:21,530 --> 00:51:27,410 I'm not going to say multicultural, but nonetheless multi faith. 457 00:51:27,410 --> 00:51:32,750 The mcsmith, the METI Farje, if you like, which is going on within the city. 458 00:51:32,750 --> 00:51:37,850 Is it properly exceptional for the Mediterranean at the time? This might be a question to our other speakers as well. 459 00:51:37,850 --> 00:51:47,420 But initially, it's a question to you. Yes, I think possibly it's it's a it's paralleled in Constantinople very prominently where Theodoric, 460 00:51:47,420 --> 00:51:51,770 of course, it spent a decade as a hostage in his youth. 461 00:51:51,770 --> 00:51:59,240 And in that critical period of adolescence, he'd been living in Constantinople as a hostage for his father's good behaviour. 462 00:51:59,240 --> 00:52:07,010 So he was he was not badly treated. It appears that the hostages lived in in the palace or in palaces. 463 00:52:07,010 --> 00:52:12,890 They were always paraded at festive events, at ceremonial events so that they could be shown office. 464 00:52:12,890 --> 00:52:18,380 The emperor's hostages, there was one from Georgia, another from Armenia. 465 00:52:18,380 --> 00:52:22,490 And so there was a notion that these were the youth. 466 00:52:22,490 --> 00:52:32,060 The younger representatives of potential enemies were kept in Constantinople and their Theodoric learnt about the 467 00:52:32,060 --> 00:52:38,780 cohabitation of Aryan and Catholic because he is an area and had to celebrate in the churches outside the walls. 468 00:52:38,780 --> 00:52:48,170 And that was, of course, a very, very critical part of his belief that for cooperation and cohabitation to work, 469 00:52:48,170 --> 00:52:51,140 there had to be an acceptance of difference. 470 00:52:51,140 --> 00:52:57,080 And the notion that just in the first the emperor of the early sixth century was going to close the churches, 471 00:52:57,080 --> 00:53:06,560 which had been used by the Aryan Christians and prevent them from celebrating their faith was, of course, the spark that made it very, very angry. 472 00:53:06,560 --> 00:53:14,270 But I think in Ravana, he found it quite natural to recreate this mixture because the Goths, 473 00:53:14,270 --> 00:53:20,750 although they may have been quite numerous and they were very militarily sufficient 474 00:53:20,750 --> 00:53:25,400 expert and they were allowed to carry weapons and and do the hard fighting. 475 00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:30,170 They were a minority and their Aryan faith was always considered a minority. 476 00:53:30,170 --> 00:53:35,990 So the Catholic and the local Catholic, the Italian, the local inhabitants, 477 00:53:35,990 --> 00:53:41,840 the Christians who lived in Ravana before the Goths arrived, knew very well that they were in the majority. 478 00:53:41,840 --> 00:53:50,600 And they had to bear with the fact that these people, they'd been conquered by King Theodoric and previously by the leader of the answer. 479 00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:59,030 So they knew about alternative definitions and they accepted that these had to be built into their world. 480 00:53:59,030 --> 00:54:04,520 And that, I think, made it possible for all these bishop, all these vicious mid-Michigan, 481 00:54:04,520 --> 00:54:11,300 all these merchants and pilgrims and people wanting to visit Ravana to come and feel at home, 482 00:54:11,300 --> 00:54:22,820 not to be isolated or excluded in the way that perhaps foreigners were often considered dangerous and not not welcome in the city. 483 00:54:22,820 --> 00:54:30,810 Thank you. I don't know if anybody else wants to come in on this question. If you back to. 484 00:54:30,810 --> 00:54:34,770 Now, just to just to say briefly, I mean, I think. 485 00:54:34,770 --> 00:54:43,350 One of the many things that a glittering legacy, hopefully the book is that we could ask the Ravana question of other places in as well in the West. 486 00:54:43,350 --> 00:54:47,820 So it's someone like my say. Yeah. I mean, could have that could about obviously. 487 00:54:47,820 --> 00:54:54,630 So but also, you know, I'm, you know, Magdeburg Gomes about where as where you know, where, where the animals end up. 488 00:54:54,630 --> 00:55:03,420 I mean Ravenna refineries portable as see if you sat and I think some that that includes it's it's it's mixed nuts. 489 00:55:03,420 --> 00:55:09,750 And, you know, I think it may help us kind of rethink how we think of the communities as we're 490 00:55:09,750 --> 00:55:13,860 in the kind of fair in the US or other in the apparently homogenous Latin west, 491 00:55:13,860 --> 00:55:21,090 which is much less than once you Perkasie. Give me but I wonder how important the word port is in your portable. 492 00:55:21,090 --> 00:55:28,580 In other words, is this a story about ports? Your last two examples weren't necessarily ports, but I mean. 493 00:55:28,580 --> 00:55:36,300 But is it is it I mean, I asked it partly because we have a torch, a flourishing torch match network on colonial ports. 494 00:55:36,300 --> 00:55:43,200 Mainly 19th and 20th century ones, which have shown that there's this extraordinary richness of port culture, 495 00:55:43,200 --> 00:55:49,560 which, again, sort of undermines but also complicates an overly straightforward imperial story. 496 00:55:49,560 --> 00:55:55,800 And I wonder if that's true already in your period. 497 00:55:55,800 --> 00:55:57,820 It seems to be, yes. 498 00:55:57,820 --> 00:56:05,840 Well, we'll move quickly then to add to the another great question, I think, from Neil Kerry, which the terms of which are complicated. 499 00:56:05,840 --> 00:56:11,070 So would you say something about how far doctrinal and hierarchical disputes between, 500 00:56:11,070 --> 00:56:17,270 on the one hand, the pope in Rome and on the other, the patriarch in Constantine Constantinople? 501 00:56:17,270 --> 00:56:23,920 Complicated and frustrated. The status of Byzantine Ravana coming back to Byzantium. 502 00:56:23,920 --> 00:56:28,040 Yeah, there's a lot of terms in there. I wonder if you have anything to say about it. 503 00:56:28,040 --> 00:56:31,960 Yes, I think that's a very, very good question and it's very difficult one. 504 00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:39,710 I think what we find in Ravana is that the X mark is the governor sent by Constantinople from the late 6th century onwards, 505 00:56:39,710 --> 00:56:45,050 and his position is to uphold whatever the patriarch in Constantinople and the emperor have agreed. 506 00:56:45,050 --> 00:56:55,370 As long as they have agreed. What then? Then formal Friedl belief is and when that this is it is denounced in Rome by the pope who 507 00:56:55,370 --> 00:57:00,320 says we are not going to go along with this definition that's come out of Constantinople. 508 00:57:00,320 --> 00:57:07,910 The Bishop of Ravana is put in a very, very difficult position because the Exarchia its neighbour is his governor is his overlord. 509 00:57:07,910 --> 00:57:13,220 And yet he is leading the community, the Christian community in Ravenna. 510 00:57:13,220 --> 00:57:24,950 And he is also very, very anxious to sustain his distance from Rome because he does not wish to be seen as a subordinate of the bishop of Rome. 511 00:57:24,950 --> 00:57:28,540 He wishes he wishes so much that he orders. 512 00:57:28,540 --> 00:57:35,240 Yes. The second way, way back in the fifth century, had established the autonomy of the Church of Ravana. 513 00:57:35,240 --> 00:57:37,160 But that was not done. 514 00:57:37,160 --> 00:57:48,200 Ravella was given very considerable authority that the city, the bishop, was given subordinate bishops estates patronage and wealth. 515 00:57:48,200 --> 00:57:56,360 But he was still to be. He was due to go to Rome to be inaugurated by the pope. 516 00:57:56,360 --> 00:58:04,760 So the bishop of Rome had official control over the establishment of bishops in Ravana. 517 00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:11,360 And this was deeply resented in Ravana. And of course, it was also much used by popes like Gregory, 518 00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:19,310 the first who had a he had his own agent in Ravana looking after things that were 519 00:58:19,310 --> 00:58:26,270 of interest to Rome and trying very hard to keep the bishops of Ravana in control. 520 00:58:26,270 --> 00:58:32,900 But there was there was obviously a very great difference between religious 521 00:58:32,900 --> 00:58:38,420 decrees issued in Constantinople and how they were observed in Rome and Ravana. 522 00:58:38,420 --> 00:58:45,410 And as often as not, there was a contradiction. And it was an opposition which meant that there were quarrels and there were schisms. 523 00:58:45,410 --> 00:58:47,840 They excommunicated each other. 524 00:58:47,840 --> 00:58:59,000 And in the mid 7th century, Archbishop Maros was indeed excommunicated and was not given was written out of the deep texts. 525 00:58:59,000 --> 00:59:10,460 And the church in Ravenna secretly used to hold a funereal feasts on the day of his death so that they could remember their bishop, 526 00:59:10,460 --> 00:59:17,660 although he had been officially excommunicated and cut out of the history of the city. 527 00:59:17,660 --> 00:59:23,840 Gosh, thank you. When I can hear some of the the bells ringing two o'clock already. 528 00:59:23,840 --> 00:59:28,250 But we might have time for one last quick question. If there is a quick answer to this, 529 00:59:28,250 --> 00:59:35,000 and that's because you mentioned art historians as people who thought about Ravana and written about Ravana a good deal and of course, 530 00:59:35,000 --> 00:59:40,310 are the famous my life. So but, um, drama. Marcelo asks, what, if any, 531 00:59:40,310 --> 00:59:45,590 of the significant archaeological evidence is that that art historians should reassess 532 00:59:45,590 --> 00:59:51,920 for a better understanding of Ravana in the context of early mediaeval Italy? 533 00:59:51,920 --> 00:59:56,060 Does that make sense as a question? Is there a quick answer or. 534 00:59:56,060 --> 01:00:03,110 Yes, I think it's very, very difficult. The archaeologists are constantly discovering new things and indeed, 535 01:00:03,110 --> 01:00:08,060 most of the new information about Ravana of recent years has come from the ground. 536 01:00:08,060 --> 01:00:12,140 And it's the archaeologists who've been excavating, who've discovered, for example, 537 01:00:12,140 --> 01:00:20,480 that there were workshops at the port of classes where iron work and glasswork and possibly ivery work was done. 538 01:00:20,480 --> 01:00:28,820 And there are new developments in the excavations of the monastic settlement against the Basilica of Saint Severest, 539 01:00:28,820 --> 01:00:36,020 which showed that there was a very, very substantial monastic community in the 19th century and on. 540 01:00:36,020 --> 01:00:39,560 So there's quite a lot of of new material. 541 01:00:39,560 --> 01:00:49,340 And I think that the interesting evidence that we will get is more evidence of although the palaces are very sadly overbuilt. 542 01:00:49,340 --> 01:00:55,100 There is more to be discovered about the palaces, the secular buildings of the rulers of Ravana. 543 01:00:55,100 --> 01:01:02,090 And we may yet discover more about the schools because there must have been schools, philosophical schools, law schools, 544 01:01:02,090 --> 01:01:08,930 places where bureaucrats were trained not just in in bureaucrat in secretarial skills, 545 01:01:08,930 --> 01:01:17,050 but in actual copying and producing manuscripts and then commentaries on the ecclesiastical text. 546 01:01:17,050 --> 01:01:21,310 But that's yet to be. That's. I think the other very quickly, 547 01:01:21,310 --> 01:01:30,250 the other very interesting thing is that quite a lot of the Gothic manuscripts which were produced in Ravana are turning up as palimpsest. 548 01:01:30,250 --> 01:01:33,310 They were scrubbed. And they are reused. 549 01:01:33,310 --> 01:01:43,090 And for example, in the writings of Isidore of Seville, a great number of palimpsest of reused parchments have Gothic under writing or Greek. 550 01:01:43,090 --> 01:01:55,090 And it is supposed that they came from Ravana or places near Ravenna, where Gothic culture was cultivated, was used and employed regularly. 551 01:01:55,090 --> 01:02:02,980 And that when people in the seventh and eighth centuries found they could no longer read these Gothic manuscripts or they had no use for them. 552 01:02:02,980 --> 01:02:04,540 They put them into the pile, 553 01:02:04,540 --> 01:02:13,300 which was to go to the scribes who had scrubbed them all and then copy more interesting texts like Central Guste in all centres at or of Seville. 554 01:02:13,300 --> 01:02:23,050 So gradually we are building up more of a resource through the study of Palimpsest, which is of absolutely fascinating discovery. 555 01:02:23,050 --> 01:02:24,640 Absolutely. I mean, yes. 556 01:02:24,640 --> 01:02:34,630 And in Palimpsest as a kind of another portable degree in which Ravana becomes portable both both metaphorically and materially. 557 01:02:34,630 --> 01:02:39,370 Strikes me as very interesting. Maybe it's a good place to end. 558 01:02:39,370 --> 01:02:47,620 I don't know if anybody else wants to come in, Peter or Conradi, if you want to say anything else by way of conclusion. 559 01:02:47,620 --> 01:02:54,280 If not, I'll just echo what one of the questions in the chat this time says. 560 01:02:54,280 --> 01:03:00,280 This is an extraordinary book, dearly awaited. We now understand a bit more about it. 561 01:03:00,280 --> 01:03:10,180 Thanks both to you yourself. And also to be called are interlocutors in this conversation. 562 01:03:10,180 --> 01:03:14,170 So thank you once again to all us because our lives are able. 563 01:03:14,170 --> 01:03:18,430 Pete, Frank and Judith Herring herself for a brilliant discussion. 564 01:03:18,430 --> 01:03:28,570 Thank you to those who were watching and listening. And please join us at the same time next week for our next book at lunchtime, 565 01:03:28,570 --> 01:03:34,630 where the question of Europe is further addressed, this time, Western Europe's Democratic Age. 566 01:03:34,630 --> 01:03:42,100 Written by Professor Martin Conway. Do cheque the torch website to register for next week's event. 567 01:03:42,100 --> 01:03:46,150 And thank you once again, all of you. And stay safe. 568 01:03:46,150 --> 01:04:08,751 Stay well. Goodbye.