How a desperate military outpost in Italy accidentally birthed the medieval Italian city-state.
In short: Established in 584 to defend Byzantine Italy against Lombard invaders, the Exarchate of Ravenna centralized military and civil power. Yet, as imperial authority waned, local militias and autonomous duchies emerged from its ruins. This fragmentation paved the way for the rise of independent communes and the temporal power of the Papacy.
The Exarchate of Ravenna was born from necessity. Following the mid-6th-century Gothic War, Emperor Justinian I had reconquered Italy, but the 568 Lombard invasion shattered the region. By 584, the Byzantine Empire, unable to maintain traditional Roman administrative structures, appointed an exarch in Ravenna to hold supreme military and civil authority. This official governed a collection of coastal territories, including Rome, Naples, and the Pentapolis, while the Lombards dominated the interior.
The system was inherently unstable. To survive, the exarchs militarized their districts, appointing duces to oversee defense. However, these local commanders and their militias, recruited from the local population, gradually prioritized regional interests over Constantinople's mandates. By the late 7th century, the exarch’s effective control had shrunk to the Ravenna area. Tensions between the Papacy and the Byzantine Empire—exacerbated by religious conflicts like iconoclasm—further eroded imperial legitimacy. The local aristocracy and the Church of Rome increasingly acted as independent powers, effectively sidelining the exarch.
The collapse was swift. In 751, the Lombard king Aistulf captured Ravenna, killing the last exarch, Eutychius. This fall signaled the end of Byzantine dominance in central Italy. Following the Frankish intervention, these lands were donated to the Papacy, forming the basis of the Papal States. Yet, the legacy of the exarchate endured. The local secular power structures and independent militias developed during the exarchate’s decline provided the blueprint for the autonomous communes that would define the Italian Middle Ages three centuries later.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Exarchate of Ravenna
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